The Body in the Moonlight (17 page)

“Grab a mug,” Ms. O'Malley directed, pointing to the counter. Faith did and then they exited through the mudroom. Crossing the yard to the barn, Faith felt jealous. She'd be an old lady before she had a house of her own. The Fairchilds had built a small cottage near the
Millers', on Sanpere Island in Maine, but it was a summer place, not a real house. They might change parishes, but she'd always be in a parsonage, and you didn't paint those red, even cream of tomato red.

Tanya O'Malley, unlike the other authors, wrote nonfiction—true crime—and Faith had been particularly eager to speak with her. The woman was more well known than any of the others, except Anson Scott, and had made the
New York Times
bestseller list several times. She'd written about the Pamela Smart case—the New Hampshire high school teacher who'd used sex to persuade one of her students to kill her husband. Then there had also been one about the Stuart case. Charles Stuart had murdered his pregnant wife, then spun a tale about being attacked by a black man. His story was immediately believed by the Boston police, who promptly found a suspect before some glaring discrepancies and Stuart's sudden suicide revealed the real killer, as in “It's
always
the husband.” O'Malley's latest book was about the mother who hired a hit man to bump off the mother of a rival cheerleader when her own daughter didn't make the squad. Faith thought of Janice Mulholland. Mothers did get very, very crazy. How crazy was Janice? She wasn't happy with Jared, given his lack of appreciation of Missy's talent. That was clear. But unhappy enough to kill his fiancée? A gigantic “So there”?

“Just look at her eyes. She's been off her feed, but she ate a little while ago. I want to watch and make sure it stays down.”

The ewe was gazing up at Tanya plaintively. Faith had taken the kids to Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, run by the Audubon Society, and this sheep didn't appear to look any different from Drumlin's, but there were obviously subtleties here that would forever escape Faith.

“You must be having a hell of a time getting anybody to hire you after last Saturday,” Tanya observed as she sat down on a low stool and motioned Faith toward another. The barn looked like an illustration from Swedish illustrator Carl Larsson's
The Farm
. It was immaculate and smelled pleasantly of hay, with just a whiff of barnyard. That could change if the ewe has digestive problems, Faith thought as she joined Tanya in keeping watch. It was definitely one of the most unusual circumstances in which she'd ever questioned someone. She took a sip from her mug. She'd almost forgotten she was holding it, she'd been so fascinated by the surroundings. Mulled cider, not too sweet, delicious.

“I'm afraid you're right. I catered an event on the North Shore last night and I have a booking tomorrow night, but that's it.”

“People are such sissies,” Tanya observed. “Besides, you didn't kill her.”

“Thank you, but why are you so sure?” Faith was beginning to hope that today would be the start of a long and beautiful friendship with this unusual woman. She liked what Ms. O'Malley had to say—and she wanted to see the rest of her house.

“Too obvious even to be a plan. Unless you intended
to get out of the business, you'd never jeopardize your livelihood that way. You'd come up with something else.”

Why hadn't she thought of this? And proclaimed it loudly and clearly. You didn't shoot yourself in the foot, or, in this case, fall on your own boning knife. Faith turned to the business at hand with a sense of encouragement that had been missing for days.

“As I said on the phone, I've been asking each of the authors who were present for any thoughts. If they were writing it, who would they suspect, or, in your case, does it remind you of any other case? Who do
you
think killed Gwen Lord?”

Tanya O'Malley sat still, then reached over to pat the ewe, burying her fingertips in the animal's coat.

“I've thought a lot about that night on and off this week. A murder game turned lethal. The victim a strikingly beautiful young woman. I'd watched her dance—my table was directly adjacent to the dance floor—and there had been an almost determinedly reckless quality to it. Others were having fun, whooping it up, yet she seemed to be acting a part, the part of someone having a good time. Every once in a while, the smile would leave her face, and I thought she looked tragic, almost desperate. Her partner, a handsome young man, seemed worried about her, solicitous even. He obviously cared about her deeply.”

This was the time to say that the handsome young man had been her husband, but somehow the words stuck in Faith's throat, gagging her.

“Something was on her mind. I fancy myself an animal behaviorist and a pretty good observer. She wasn't a happy person.”

Faith drank some cider. It had never occurred to her that Gwen might not have been happy. She'd been engaged to someone who adored her and whom she showed every indication of adoring back; she had a job she loved, no money worries. It was sad that she had lost her parents the way she did and had no siblings—although Faith knew some people for whom that would have been a blessing. Fortunately, she was not one of them. But what on earth could Gwen have been distressed about that night? The argument with Nick? Trouble at work? It had to be that.

“What exactly are you suggesting?” Faith asked, although she had a good guess what the answer would be.

“I think she killed herself.”

“Except why there and why that way? It was horrible and she must have been in terrible pain.”

“True, but not for long, and of course she wouldn't have known that ahead of time, would she? If no one ever killed him-or herself because of the imagined pain involved, we'd have virtually no suicides. And as to the place, perhaps she'd been carrying around the cyanide—it was cyanide, wasn't it? I saw the body—” Faith nodded and Tanya continued. “Carrying it around until she felt brave, or desperate, enough. It could have been the sight of all those merrymakers that pushed her over the edge.”

“Wouldn't the police have found the container? They're treating this as a homicide.”

“Easy enough to empty it onto her dessert, then go to the bathroom and flush it down the toilet. It would have been glass. All she'd have had to do was wrap it in a tissue and grind it up with her heel or walk out onto the terrace and do the same. It rained this week, but there still might be some particles of glass.”

Faith assumed the police had checked the grounds, but she'd tell Dunne Tanya's theory. It made sense, except, unfortunately, it wouldn't help Have Faith. The one person who could confirm the story and clear the firm's reputation was dead.

“She didn't leave any kind of a note. The police have searched her apartment.”

“Contrary to popular belief, most suicides don't. But you don't want to hear all this. It doesn't help you. You need a killer and you need to catch him—or rather, the police do. I can't imagine your efforts extend to actual apprehensions.” She smiled benevolently.

Well, they have in the past, Faith was tempted to say, but it sounded like boasting.

“According to all the other writers put together, murderers are filled with overweening pride, cowards, great actors with senses of humor, and insane. What would you add to the list?”

Tanya answered immediately. “I'm surprised no one mentioned sex. So many murderers experience a sexual thrill in the act—and while thinking about it both before and after. They get off on death.”

Faith thought about Leopold and Loeb and what Bill Brown had said. He'd been suggesting the same thing.

“And in this case, the target was a very sexually attractive woman,” Tanya added.

I know this; we can move on to something else. The words echoed in Faith's head.

“What a good girl,” Tanya was murmuring softly to the sheep, stroking her fleece. “That's my little Jean Louise.” She looked up. “Scout's real name in
To Kill a Mockingbird.
This is actually Jean Louise the Third. I've been keeping sheep for many years. The book is my favorite and I always like to have a Jean Louise around the place.”

“It's my favorite book, too. I read it or
Pride and Prejudice
whenever I'm diseased in body or mind.” Tanya O'Malley seemed to elicit this sort of expression.

The woman nodded. “I've fitted up a nice place in the loft to read out here. I like the company.” They sat in companionable silence for a while, drinking their cider.

“The Druids had it all wrong,” Tanya observed.

“Oh?” said Faith, wondering how they had strayed from Maycomb, Georgia, and Jane Austen's Hampshire so much further back in time and place.

“Halloween. Of course, they didn't call it that—that came later, All Hallows' Eve, the vigil of Hallowmas, All Saint's Day, November first. The Druids had some other name. But it was a great autumn festival. Huge bonfires. It was to celebrate the sun deity and give thanks for the harvest, but I think they really just liked to make enormous piles and torch them.
The Druids thought big. But they believed that Saman, the Lord of Death, called all the wicked souls that had been condemned to inhabit the bodies of animals for the past year together to wander the countryside in a terrifying pack. Later, it was simplified to ghosts and witches. It should have been the
good
souls who got to inhabit the bodies of animals. Look at Jean Louise. She'd be a treat for some newly departed and could never for an instant permit wickedness to share her inner space.”

Faith looked at the sheep. There
was
a simple goodness in her placid face and it was hard to imagine a devil within. Tanya O'Malley was very, very much in tune with her flock.

“I agree,” Faith said. “Jean Louise is the soul of goodness.” Especially since she's kept her food down, Faith added to herself. A regurgitating sheep would have killed the mood.

All Tanya's talk about Halloween reminded Faith that she had two little trick-or-treaters at home, by this time growing anxious for her arrival. But Tanya had one more piece of Halloween lore to dispense. “They still light bonfires in the British Isles, and in some places, everyone who is there places a stone in the dying embers. If yours has moved when you come back to check the next day, you're sure to die within the year. I've always thought it would make a good plot. The murderer deliberately moves the victim's stone and then over the course of the year insidiously uses the power of suggestion, and some near misses,
until the person either kills himself or simply dies of fright.”

Faith shuddered. She planned to stay away from any bonfires.

“It's all superstition. Even a sheep knows better.” Tanya stood up with Faith and put her hand on Faith's shoulder. Faith felt the flood of friendship return. Throughout the visit, she'd had an uncanny feeling that Tanya knew everything she was feeling. It was odd the way this happened every once in a great while. You met someone at a party or somewhere else, began to talk and soon felt as if you had known each other forever. And you stayed friends, although you might not see each other often. You always picked up where you left off. Women. She realized with a jolt. It was always with women. Niki's words from the night before came back to her. Well, it must be a girl thing, or make that woman thing.

“Good luck tonight,” Faith said as they walked together around the house to the drive where Faith had parked her car. “I'm sorry I can't come to the panel, but I'll be handing out unhealthy food.” She knew from experience that no kid likes to get an apple or box of raisins on Halloween, and so she stuck resolutely to chocolate.

“I like being on a panel with Veronica. She carries the ball and everyone is happy simply to listen to her read in that wonderful voice of hers. I don't know the third author. Writes some sort of mysteries with recipes in them. Recipes for what? Arsenic pie? I'm
not sure I get the concept. Oh, sorry.” She laughed. “You'll be back in business soon enough, Faith. Don't worry.”

And Faith found that she wasn't. She was feeling positively lighthearted. “Anson Scott has a marvelous voice, too. I suppose he's too busy to do a library panel.”

Tanya's face darkened. “Or too something else. Don't get me started on him. The Druids would have put him in an animal for sure, but I wouldn't do that even to a—well, a coyote. They go after my chickens,” she added, apologizing for the maligning of a four-footed furry creature.

Faith could understand how a fellow writer might find Anson's habit of sucking all the air out of a room a bit annoying. He did tend to occupy center stage—and stage left and stage right.

“Come to see me again. Bring your children to visit the animals.”

“I will,” Faith promised, then drove off. Tanya had described herself as an “animal behaviorist.” Faith wanted to ask her whether that was why her genre was true crime. It seemed such a contrast—the picture-book farm filled with living things, the joy of nature, and a livelihood that depended on nature gone awry—but then it was
human
nature.

 

“If I wear my jacket, I won't look like a robot,” Ben explained patiently. “Robots don't have red arms.”

At dusk, it was still warm. Indian summer come at
last for a tantalizingly brief moment before the cold of winter. So far, only a few of the youngest children had come to the door, dressed as tiny pirates, witches, fairy princesses, and one unicorn. Ben was old enough to go out in the dark—with his Dad—and also apparently considered himself old enough to make his own clothing choices. Tom, flashlight in hand, was ready to go, but Ben had balked at Faith's demand for outerwear. She was secretly pleased that he was already showing sartorial taste. The red Rugged Bear jacket did ruin the effect.